


Stay With the One Who Wants You

by ziparumpazoo



Category: Fringe
Genre: Amber Verse, F/M, Found Families, Timestamp, coming home
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-25
Updated: 2012-09-25
Packaged: 2017-11-15 01:13:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 542
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/521520
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ziparumpazoo/pseuds/ziparumpazoo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lincoln in the Redverse, one year later.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Stay With the One Who Wants You

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Dance With the One Who Brought You](https://archiveofourown.org/works/266211) by [ziparumpazoo](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ziparumpazoo/pseuds/ziparumpazoo). 



> Timestamp fill for [monanotlisa](http://archiveofourown.org/users/monanotlisa), who asked for [Dance With the One Who Brought You](http://archiveofourown.org/works/266211), one year later.

Being Over There (or Over Here, as he's come to think of it now) doesn’t go quite as Lincoln'd planned.   
  
Not that he'd actually  _planned_  on permanently relocating – it'd been more of a spontaneous leap of faith that the hole left by Captain Lee would be more or less Lincoln-shaped.   
  
It wasn't.  
  
Despite the shared name, the lookalike face, and the near identical job, the corners don't line up quite right. It's not that he'd expected Liv to… actually he's not sure what he'd expected. When Robert had died, Lincoln had inadvertently pulled Olivia and her odd found-family at the Harvard lab into that empty space. He recognized later that it seemed an awful lot like a rebound fling, trading one partner for another, and he'd had no intention of placing Liv in that same position, pieces slightly realigned. But as they say, the wheel keeps on turning, the circle goes unbroken, life goes on and Lincoln finds himself awkwardly stepping around half-unpacked moving boxes in another, even smaller bachelor's loft while Liv watches him from behind an uncertain smile and that trademark curtain of red hair.   
  
"Remember when I said I'd help you unpack?" she says as she nudges the box marked 'casual clothes' with the toe of her boot.  
  
Lincoln looks up at her over the top of his glasses. "I do, actually." He remembers very well, and maybe that's why he'd taken the chance at a new start; because for all the other versions of themselves in that bed, they'd been good together.  
  
"The offer still stands."  
  
He's maybe got a half-dozen boxes - a year's worth of accumulated clothes and possessions rescued from his first apartment after most of his block had been ambered. Half an hour's worth of work at the most. He doesn't  _need_  help unpacking.  
  
But then, that's not what she's really offering.  
  
He swallows. "I'll, uh, I'll keep that in mind," he says out of habit of maintaining that respectful distance. It's been a difficult year for everyone, and for Liv in particular. He's gone out of his way not to make it more so.  
  
Liv kicks the box. It slides across the dusty floorboards and bumps to a stop against his shoe. "Lincoln… " She shakes her head as if she can't believe how dense he can be sometimes, then crosses the room in three quick steps to kiss him soundly.   
  
Lincoln's not sure if the euphoric buzzing in his head is from the nearly forgotten taste of her on his lips, or the need to breathe. He leans back slightly, not enough to pull away, but enough to catch her watching him in that way she does – head canted like she's watching the scene unfold a few seconds ahead of the rest of them. He licks his lips. "Okay," he says because she's waiting for  _something_.   
  
The corner of her mouth twitches. She reaches up and pushes his glasses back up the bridge of his nose, erasing that last, lingering bit of doubt in his mind that he's still nothing but a stand-in.   
  
"Okay," he says again. He taps the box between their feet with his toe. "I never could figure out where to put all this stuff. A little help would be good."


End file.
